[Dixonary] Round 3012 ASYNTEDON results

[Efrem G Mallach]

Folks,

Asyntedon is the omission of conjunctions between parts of a sentence, definition 8. The textbook example of asyntedon is Julius Caesar's "veni, vidi, vici." John Barrs, while he didn't know the word, was able to derive its meaning from its components and did the honorable thing by disqualifying himself. It got one vote, from Judy Madnick.

The next deal goes to Debbie Embler, whose improbably long definition #15 ("a morpheme in morphology and syntax, etc., etc., etc.) got 6 votes. Runner-up and traditional "winnah" is Tony Abell's #7 (an object obviously out of place, something that there should be a word for even if this isn't it) with 5 points. He was followed by Tim Lodge's nonconformist Asian musical note, #11, which got 4 votes.

Votes seemed to be concentrated on a smaller subset of the fake definitions than usual. Fully half (7 of 14) got no votes at all. That seems high to me. 

Full results:

1. [Gk.] the woolly mammoth. From Shefler, M. who voted 11, 15. Voted for by: Bourne, T.; Stevens, G.; Lodge, T.  Score: 3.

2. a randomly-timed bomb explosion. From Bourne, T. who voted 1, 11. Voted for by: Embler, D.  Score: 1.

3. a short literary essay or sketch. From Carson, C. who voted 7, 15. Voted for by: Cunningham, D.; Shepherdson, N.  Score: 2.

4. a harsh penalty for a minor crime. From Stevens, G. who voted 1, 7. Voted for by: None. Score: 0.

5. private consideration of a case by a judge. From Madnick, J. who voted *8*, 15. Voted for by: None. Score: 2.

6. one who keeps to themselves; a rebel; a loner. From McGill, R. who voted 7, 10. Voted for by: None. Score: 0.

7. an object that is obviously or starkly out of place. From Abell, T. who voted 7, 15. Voted for by: Carson, C.; Stevens, G.; McGill, R.; Abell, T. [no point]; Cunningham, D.; Naylor, S.  Score: 5.

8. omission of conjunctions between parts of a sentence. From Dictionary which could not vote. Voted for by: Madnick, J.  Score: D1.

9. of a plant with radiate leaves or branches; umbrella-like. From Barrs, J. who was DQ. Voted for by: None. Score: 0.

10. [rare] anything which is not of uniform character or weight. From Cunningham, D. who voted 3, 7. Voted for by: McGill, R.; Widdis, D.; Naylor, S.  Score: 3.

11. in Asian music, a note not conforming to the time signature or metre of the piece. From Lodge, T. who voted 1, 15. Voted for by: Shefler, M.; Bourne, T.; Shepherdson, N.; Embler, D.  Score: 4.

12. having coloration that stands out against the creature’s habitat, usu. for the purpose of attracting a mate or fending off rivals. From Shepherdson, N. who voted 3, 11. Voted for by: None. Score: 0.

13. the rapid growth of the complexity of a problem due to how the combinatorics of the problem is affected by the input, constraints, and bounds of the problem. From Widdis, D. who voted 10, 15. Voted for by: None. Score: 0.

14. land subject to the Charter of the Forest (1217), which reformed forest law and established the rights of agistment and pannage on private land within the forests. From Naylor, S. who voted 7, 10. Voted for by: None. Score: 0.

15. a morpheme in morphology and syntax that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but depends phonologically on another word or phrase. In this sense, it is syntactically independent but phonologically dependent, always attached to a host. From Embler, D. who voted 2, 11. Voted for by: Shefler, M.; Carson, C.; Madnick, J.; Abell, T.; Lodge, T.; Widdis, D.  Score: 6.

For those who prefer tables the results in that form are below, in descending order of scores without regard for tie-breaking precedence rules.

[Tony Abell]

My apologies to Debbie for my tactical vote. Were I playing for points, I
would have voted for #8, which was indeed the real definition. But I was not
playing for points; I was playing to avoid the deal.

I had no words in store to play, and unlike everyone else, apparently, I find
the process of researching suitable words to be time-consuming and
frustrating. I actually don't mind the mechanics of dealing, but finding good
words to play is murder. I really, really don't have hours to spend poring
over unabridged dictionaries. There was a time when I would read dictionaries
for fun, but moiling for words that combine the characteristics of obscurity,
having not been played before, having hard-to-guess definitions and
(preferably) not being known by John Barrs is more work than fun.

[Efrem G Mallach]

For what it's worth, I find most of mine in the London Times cryptic crossword puzzles - including "asyntedon." Its clue was "Reduction in sentence? Yes, and no criminal gets time inside."

I own an unabridged dictionary, thanks to an editor for whom I did a few favors some decades back, but I don't remember the last time I opened it. When I need to look up a word. Google is usually closer at hand.)

Efrem

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[Ryan McGill]

Indeed, finding the words is the hardest part. I even have a few bizarre/obscure dictionaries, and even those aren't enough to avoid DQs from this crowd.

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[nancygoat]

I get many of my words (the rare times I get the deal) from old American cryptics that are online.  Also from my CD version of the OED, which is pretty old in itself, but still very useful.   It think the keyword here is "old," wherein the smarties in this group will not have seen the word recently in any format.  But Johnny still DQs me all the time.  I think that is an impossible, um, bar to get over.

Nancy